According to the Illinois Food Bureau, there are 2,640 food manufacturing companies in Illinois with a combined revenue of $180 Billion, making the State of Illinois first in the nation in processed food sales. Chicago is recognized internationally as having “…one of the largest concentrations of food-related business in the world.”
What Work Is Involved in Illinois’ Food Processing Industry?
Food processing involves taking raw foods or ingredients and transforming them into new food products. It includes everything from turning milk into cream or butter; baking and packaging cookies or candy bars; animal slaughter; and meat processing.
Food processing workers are often asked to work in shifts (mornings, evenings, overnight). Food processing worksites are almost always large factories or manufacturing facilities.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, food processing work involves the daily operation of industrial machinery that can mix, cook, or process food ingredients into the company’s final product. Food processing work involves tasks that include working with machinery that can cause serious harm in an accident, such as (quoting BLS):
- Set up, start, or load food processing equipment
- Check, weigh, and mix ingredients according to recipes
- Set and control temperatures, flow rates, and pressures of machinery
- Monitor and adjust ingredient mixes during production processes
- Observe and regulate equipment gauges and controls
- Record batch production data
- Clean workspaces and equipment according to health and safety standards
- Check final products to ensure quality.
OSHA Acts to Protect Illinois Workers in Food Processing Facilities
On November 9, 2022, the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) issued a news release confirming the injury rates for food production workers in Illinois (and Ohio) are much higher than for workers in other manufacturing industries. This is true both for seasonal workers and those working long-term in food manufacturing facilities. The increased danger of worker injuries was confirmed to be highest in the companies dedicated to the following food product lines:
- Confectionery;
- Animal;
- Fruit-based; and
- Vegetable-based.
Read, “US Department of Labor initiative seeks to protect food processing workers in Illinois, Ohio amid significantly higher injury rates,” published November 9, 2022, by the DOL’s Occupational Health and Safety Administration (“OSHA”).
As OSHA explains, during a four-year span (2016-2020), food processing workers in Illinois were hurt more often than workers in other types of manufacturing jobsites. The Illinois work accidents resulted in serious, life-altering injuries or even death to food processing workers from their bodily harm.
The most common food processing workplace accidents in Illinois Food Processing facilities involved:
- Death
- Amputations
- Fractures
- Crushed Hands
- Crushed Fingers.
In 2019 alone, OSHA reports Illinois workers in the state’s food processing industry suffered a 29% higher rate of amputation and a 14% greater rate of fractures than the overall private sector manufacturing industry.
How is this happening? OSHA investigations found industry employers breached their duties of care and safety owed to the food processing workers in two main failures:
- Food processing workers were allowed to operate machinery without proper machine guarding; and
- Food processing workers were allowed to work on jobsites without proper control of hazardous energy in the workplace.
2022 DOL Initiative to Protect Illinois Food Processing Workers
Accordingly, OSHA began a three-month campaign in Illinois with a new federal outreach program targeting these food processing workplace dangers. On October 3, 2022, the agency’s first phase began and will continue through year-end. This is its Local Emphasis Program, where OSHA representatives will try to “raise safety and health awareness with employers, professional associations, local safety councils, apprenticeship programs, local hospitals and occupational health clinics.”
Food processing employers will be invited to take advantage of OSHA’s free consultation services to help implement better machine guarding and equipment safety procedures on site and to help the companies in compliance with established OSHA safety standards.
From Chicago’s OSHA Regional Administrator Bill Donovan:
“With the establishment of this Local Emphasis Program, OSHA will stress to employers the importance of taking steps to identify, reduce and eliminate workers’ exposure to machine hazards. Employers have a legal responsibility to provide a safe and healthful workplace whether workers are employed for a day, a season or year-round. This responsibility includes providing workers with training and orientation in the language they understand and making sure proper safety precautions and procedures are followed to prevent serious or fatal injuries.”
Illinois Food Processing Workers and Risks of Injury
Based upon the new OSHA warnings, food processing workers in the State of Illinois face a very great danger of severe and catastrophic harm or even a fatal injury while working on the job. Of particular concern for those representing accident victims and their loved ones are three recognized dangers facing Illinois food processing company employees.
They are: (1) shift work, where workers are known to face a higher risk of injury due to worker fatigue; (2) inadequate machine guards which expose workers to painful and horrific bodily harm; and (3) the devastating injuries that occur when plant power and electrical forces are not properly overseen and secured by those responsible for the jobsite.
For more, read our earlier discussions in:
- Shift Work Accidents: Fatigue Dangers and Workplace Impairment
- Machine Guarding: Serious Industrial Work Accidents Caused by Moving Machine Parts
- Electrocution: Electricity Kills People In All Kinds of Electrical Accidents: Be Careful of Electrocution Dangers.
Sadly, there will be more Illinois food processing workers who die in an on-the-job accident or suffer permanent harm and disability in a food processing work injury. These catastrophic injuries, particularly amputations, have a far-reaching impact upon the worker-victim and their families and loved ones, too.
Employers’ breaching their known duties of care and safety is the cause of these preventable accidents. Food processing companies know the risks their workers face on the job. These companies must do better to keep Illinois workers safe.
When food processing workers in Illinois are hurt or killed in a jobsite accident, then the state law of Illinois provides avenues for justice to the work accident victim and their family members. Workers’ compensation laws allow for disability coverage and/or death benefits, for instance.
Investigations into the food processing accident may also reveal personal injury causes of action against third parties who breached legal duties to the worker victim, such as (1) repair and maintenance companies; (2) equipment or machinery manufacturers; and (3) others with possession, custody, or control of aspects of the jobsite.
For more, read:
- Premises Liability and Workplace Accidents: Third Party Injury Claims
- Workers’ Compensation and Third-Party Claims for On-the-Job Accidents
- The Two Main Differences Between Workers Compensation and Personal Injury Claims for Accident Victims in Indiana and Illinois.
The recent OSHA revelations of the shockingly high risks facing Illinois food processing workers must be addressed. It is hoped that the new Local Emphasis Program makes employers more diligent in their efforts to keep the very people working to make their huge company revenues safe from harm. Please be careful out there!
